Daily
postings from the Keystone State Education Coalition now reach more than 1900
Pennsylvania education policymakers – school directors, administrators,
legislators, legislative and congressional staffers, PTO/PTA officers, parent
advocates, teacher leaders, education professors, members of the press and a
broad array of P-16 regulatory agencies, professional associations and education
advocacy organizations via emails, website, Facebook and Twitter.
The Keystone State Education Coalition is
pleased to be listed among the friends and allies of The Network for Public
Education. Are you a
member?
These daily
emails are archived at http://keystonestateeducationcoalition.org
Follow us on Twitter at @lfeinberg
Education Voters
PA – Statewide Call to Action day April 10th
Download 1 page pdf with information about the April 10th
call-in day.
Are high-stakes tests wrecking our schools? “Why I won’t let my son take
the PSSA” goes viral; strikes a chord with over 32,000 hits
Opt Out Goes Viral
We’ve gone viral again! And the
Governor is listening. On Sunday, the Post-Gazette published
Kathy Newman’s terrific Op Ed about why she is opting her son out of
high-stakes-testing. [See “A
Plague of Cheating”] In the past 48 hours, over 23,000 people have
shared that story on Facebook from the paper’s website and it has generated an
incredible nationwide discussion with over 300 public comments. Yes, over
twenty-three thousand people have not only read about our grassroots movement
but have shared the story (we know the actual number of readers is much, much
higher and still climbing fast as I type).
So it comes as no surprise that
Governor Corbett’s office is paying attention. The press secretary for the PA
Department of Education, Tim Eller, has a letter-to-the-editor in today’s paper
responding to the Op Ed. It is full of incomplete statements and rhetorical red
herrings, and demonstrates the way in which this administration continues to
purposefully mislead the public. So let’s take a closer look, shall we? [All
references to Post-Gazette,
4-2-13]
"Why I won't let my son take the
PSSA" goes viral
Philly
Daily News by Will Bunch Tuesday, April 2, 2013 , 8:32 PM
Last night I mentioned that at
the same time as cheating scandals erupt in Atlanta
and elsewhere, a rebellion is growing against excessive standardized testing of
our schoolchildren, noting that some teachers in Seattle
It's called "Why
I won't let my son take the PSSA," although I especially like the
sub-head, "The opt-out movement is growing because high-stakes tests are
wrecking our schools." :Here's a particularly juicy snippet:
Here’s a response by Tim Eller,
Press Sec’y for the PA Dept of Education….
PSSAs are
valid
Post
Gazette Opinion By TIM ELLER, Press Secretary, Pa. April 2,
2013 12:10 am
Before addressing the flaws of
Kathy M. Newman's thinking ("Why I Won't Let My Son Take the PSSA," Forum, March
31), a correction is necessary: Gov. Tom Corbett didn't cut $1 billion from
education. Since taking office, the governor has increased state support of
public schools by $1.25 billion. The
writer's critique of the PSSAs is quite disturbing. Expecting educators to be
held accountable for student performance is unacceptable? Expecting students to
graduate with the skills and knowledge to be successful in life is unheard of?
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/letters/pssas-are-valid-681759/#ixzz2PLNTaQEs
State
Board of Ed drops graduation project requirement, leaves it up to districts
ANDREW SHAW / The York
Dispatch 04/01/2013 01:16:19 PM EDT
The state Board of Education
has made another change on the Keystone Exams.
The board gave final approval
to the end-of-course high school assessments in mid-March, formally installing
the Keystones as the replacement for the 11th-grade Pennsylvania System of
School Assessment exams starting with the class of 2017.
While that was a formality -
districts have been administering Keystones in a pilot phase for two years -
the board also decided to remove the graduation project requirement. The state
board wanted districts to focus on Keystones and not have to juggle the
additional mandate of a graduation project, said Department of Education
spokesman Tim Eller.
"Allowing that to be a
local decision was more appropriate," Eller said.
By Eleanor Chute / Pittsburgh April 2, 2013 10:55 am
The Pennsylvania Association of
School Business Officials today announced it supports making a
"significant change" in state pension laws. PASBO, which is made up of school employees
who handle finances and operations, said it supports the restructuring of
future benefits for current employees, which Gov. Tom Corbett advocated in his
budget address in February.
"Without addressing both
current and future costs of mandated pension expenditures for school employees,
we will have to devote $2,500 per student by FY 2017-18 just for retirement
costs," PASBO executive director Jay Himes, PASBO executive director, said
in a press release.
Distressed
Districts: Judge names Paul Long receiver of Duquesne City
School District
By Mary
Niederberger / Pittsburgh April 2, 2013 4:20 pm
Allegheny County Common Pleas
Judge Judith L.A. Friedman appointed Paul Long as the receiver for the Duquesne City
School District , paving the way for
him to carry out his plan to send the district's K-6 students to another
district, possibly Pittsburgh
“Our district’s 80-plus online
courses — in all core areas, electives, honors and AP subjects — are taught by
certified public school teachers. Some students come to the high school for the
full day, some for a handful of class periods and others not at all. Students
can choose which learning environment best meets their needs, and they are
supported by their teachers in whatever venue they pick. Cyber students are
eligible to participate in extracurricular activities and interscholastic
sports.”
Delivering
Instruction Online
What to expect when your schools blend traditional and cyber learning
Lisa Andrejko, president-elect of Urban
Superintendents Association of America, is superintendent of the Quakertown
Community School District
Three months into our school
district’s inaugural venture in online course delivery, the board of education
used a live, remote connection on an oversized projection screen at its evening
meeting to see and hear one of our first high school cyber students describe her
virtual learning experiences.
Guess who’s funding the “parent
trigger”? Hint: save more, live better, dismantle democratically governed
public education……
Parent
Trigger - Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution
Frying
Pan News by Gary Cohn on April 2, 2013
Gary Cohn is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist who has worked for the Los Angeles
Times, Baltimore
At first glance, it is one of
the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist
crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer
examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily
financed by the conservative Walton Family Foundation, one
of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying
Pan News investigation has shown.
Since 2009, the foundation has
poured more than $6.3 million into Parent
Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group that
is in the forefront of the parent-trigger campaign in California
The reformy-minded campaign
finance machine is becoming a fact of American political life.
Michelle Rhee's political giving around
the country has been well-documented,
as have the lobbying efforts of members of the educational-industrial complex
such as K12,
Inc and Jeb's
Bush's FEE. What I don't think
we've really determined, as of yet, is just how well-coordinated and
far-reaching this reformy intrusion into politics is. Case in point:
through sheer coincidence, a reader set me on a trail of a series of coordinated
campaign donations that is simply astonishing in its breadth and depth.
Scandal in
Atlanta
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH Published: April 2, 2013
There are few more contentious
issues in public education than the increased reliance on standardized testing. In the context of a fiery debate, the Atlanta
Education Week K-12 Parents and
the Public Blog By Michele Molnar on April
2, 2013 4:15 PM
Many Texas
Organized as Texans
Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (TAMSA), the moms (and
some dads, too) scored their first victory on March 27 when a bill that would
reduce the number of mandatory "end-of-course" tests in Lone Star
State schools passed the House, and now they are pressing on.
theGRIO by Carrie Healey | April
1, 2013 at 1:58 PM
A new piece of legislation, if passed, will penalize low-income families
in Tennessee
Should a low-income family’s child not meet satisfactory levels in the
subject areas of mathematics and reading or language arts, the family’s welfare
benefits will be reduced by 20 percent. The
legislation (Senate Bill 132, House Bill 261) applies to low-income
families, with no mention of penalties to middle or high-income families whose
children perform poorly in school.
The racket with standardized test
scores
It is time to acknowledge that the fashionable theory of school reform —
requiring that pay and job security for teachers, principals and administrators
depend on their students’ standardized test scores — is at best a
well-intentioned mistake, and at worst nothing but a racket.
I mean that literally. Beverly Hall, the former superintendent of the
Atlanta public schools, was indicted
on racketeering charges Friday for an alleged cheating
scheme that won her more than $500,000 in performance bonuses. Hall,
who retired two years ago, is also accused of theft, conspiracy and making
false statements. She has denied any wrongdoing.
Crucible of Change in Memphis
New York Times By MOTOKO RICH Published: April 2, 2013
…..Tennessee ’s Achievement School District,
founded as part of the state’s effort to qualify for the Obama
administration’s Race to
the Top grant, is one of a small handful of state-run districts
intended to rejuvenate chronically struggling schools. Louisiana ’s Recovery School District, created in 2003, is
the best-known forerunner, and this year Michigan Virginia
Most of the schools will be run by charter operators. All will emphasize
frequent testing and data analysis. Many are instituting performance pay for
teachers and longer school days, and about a fifth of the new district’s
recruits come from Teach for
America, a program in which high-achieving college graduates work in
low-income neighborhood schools. And the achievement district will not offer
teachers tenure.
Districts Struggle To Purchase
Materials For Common Core
By Gavin Paterniti (gpaterniti@post-journal.com) , The
Jamestown NY Post-Journal April 1, 2013
For school districts attempting to meet the abundance of new education
mandates set forth by the state, anticipated expenditures continue to rise.
It has been found that the funding received by districts implementing
these mandates, such as Annual Professional Performance Review plans and the
new Common Core Learning Standards curriculum, is being far outpaced by the
costs required to do so.
In Chautauqua
County
Network for Public Education
Webinar: How to Organize a
Grassroots Group; Saturday, April 13 at 2:30
pm EDT
Many of those who have joined our network want to get involved in
grassroots work to change the direction of education in our communities. We are
now planning a series of web forums to share concrete ways to do just that. The
first will focus on how to organize grassroots groups.
Phyllis Bush and members of the North
East Indiana Friends of Public Education will share their experiences
in getting organized. Formed just two years ago, this group helped elect
teacher Glenda Ritz as state superintendent of education.
The webinar will take place on Saturday, April 13, at 2:30 pm Eastern time, 11:30 am Pacific time. You can register
here. You will be emailed a link to the webinar a day or two before the
event.
Charter schools - public funding without public scrutiny
Proposed statewide
authorization and direct payment would further diminish accountability and
oversight for public tax dollars
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